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Should we be celebrating Christmas?

Lord Lavender

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The Top 10 Reasons Christmas is Evil: Holiday Hoax! | Heavy.com

I can see why atheists might be fine with it, but is it wholesome for Christians? And to what extent is it okay?

Did my comment about Christmas spark this thread off? :D. I think Christmas is evil in such as it devalues the work of the working classes in favour of the capaplsit cooperation's who gain from Chrismas. While i can see the goodwill side of things it disheartens me to see Christmas become a gift fest with people killing each other just for bargains on Black Friday (People have trampled over toddlers to get a 10% cheaper TV) when we should be with family and friends and spreading the joy.
 

ceecee

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Did my comment about Christmas spark this thread off? :D. I think Christmas is evil in such as it devalues the work of the working classes in favour of the capaplsit cooperation's who gain from Chrismas. While i can see the goodwill side of things it disheartens me to see Christmas become a gift fest with people killing each other just for bargains on Black Friday (People have trampled over toddlers to get a 10% cheaper TV) when we should be with family and friends and spreading the joy.

Online shopping should have stopped that but yes, there are people that have a need to be part of the problem.

Why can't Christmas be whatever people want it to be? Like Thanksgiving in the US. I'm thankful for <insert reason>. Why do I or anyone else need to make Christmas wholesome for Christians? Or invisible to Muslims and Jews? Or the War on Christmas that doesn't exist, aka Bill O'Rilley's mantra. Shut the fuck up all of you!

Have Christmas. Don't have Christmas. It doesn't have a singular meaning, it doesn't have to. The Christians can continue to believe the Nativity Story, everyone else can believe in Santa, except the Jews, they already have Hanukkah. The Dutch well, I don't know what to tell them.
 

Virtual ghost

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Did my comment about Christmas spark this thread off? :D. I think Christmas is evil in such as it devalues the work of the working classes in favour of the capaplsit cooperation's who gain from Chrismas. While i can see the goodwill side of things it disheartens me to see Christmas become a gift fest with people killing each other just for bargains on Black Friday (People have trampled over toddlers to get a 10% cheaper TV) when we should be with family and friends and spreading the joy.


Spoliler: what you just described has nothing to do with Christmas. :wink:
 
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Spoliler: what you just described has nothing to do with Christmas. :wink:

In the bible story of Jesus' birth, the people in Bethlehem were celebrating, as they did every year, the day that their savior would be born. So, it was like Christmas. When the shepherds came down to tell everyone that their savior was born, the people of Bethlehem were too busy partying to care. Some people see that story is related to our current celebrations of Christmas. The act of setting up a Christmas tree is a distraction from celebrating his birth.
 
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Did my comment about Christmas spark this thread off? :D. I think Christmas is evil in such as it devalues the work of the working classes in favour of the capaplsit cooperation's who gain from Chrismas. While i can see the goodwill side of things it disheartens me to see Christmas become a gift fest with people killing each other just for bargains on Black Friday (People have trampled over toddlers to get a 10% cheaper TV) when we should be with family and friends and spreading the joy.

I'm actually debating buying a Christmas cookie jar, to replace one that got broken when I was 15. I really liked that cookie jar and haven't been able to find one just like it until now. But, I don't know if i should be doing Christmas at all. Like, maybe the problem was that I had a cookie jar to be broken in the first place. So, I thought might as well start a thread while we're on the subject.
 
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Online shopping should have stopped that but yes, there are people that have a need to be part of the problem.

Why can't Christmas be whatever people want it to be? Like Thanksgiving in the US. I'm thankful for <insert reason>. Why do I or anyone else need to make Christmas wholesome for Christians? Or invisible to Muslims and Jews? Or the War on Christmas that doesn't exist, aka Bill O'Rilley's mantra. Shut the fuck up all of you!

Have Christmas. Don't have Christmas. It doesn't have a singular meaning, it doesn't have to. The Christians can continue to believe the Nativity Story, everyone else can believe in Santa, except the Jews, they already have Hanukkah. The Dutch well, I don't know what to tell them.

I thought the Dutch had Santa Claus
 

prplchknz

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don't like christmas don't celebrate it

if you're fine with christmas don't be a dick about it and don't get angry at people who want nothing to do with christmas.
 

Virtual ghost

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This always makes me laugh because it is so innocent and people have such a problem with this. I mean in Croatia the black guy of the Christmas time tortures bad children until they brake. :D



 

Yuurei

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don't like christmas don't celebrate it

if you're fine with christmas don't be a dick about it and don't get angry at people who want nothing to do with christmas.

I get angry at them when they specifically try to ruin it for me. I understand why some people hate Christmas but I think a lot of it is on them.
I hate capitalism more than most, as well as crowds and unnecessary ceremony, noisy children but I tune it out. I still love Christmas because I only focus on the good.
 

prplchknz

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I get angry at them when they specifically try to ruin it for me. I understand why some people hate Christmas but I think a lot of it is on them.
I hate capitalism more than most, as well as crowds and unnecessary ceremony, noisy children but I tune it out. I still love Christmas because I only focus on the good.

exactly i do most of my christmas shopping online no crowds. and its a time for me to see parts of family once a year and i fortunately have a good family so i enjoy seeing them. also food tons of food.
 

Lord Lavender

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I get angry at them when they specifically try to ruin it for me. I understand why some people hate Christmas but I think a lot of it is on them.
I hate capitalism more than most, as well as crowds and unnecessary ceremony, noisy children but I tune it out. I still love Christmas because I only focus on the good.

I do like Christmas for the family bonding but i just detest all the shopping (Even online shopping is a hassle, I just prefer not to shop in general). I also like the vibe of Christmas as well.
 
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I think Christians have a right to celebrate it if they want. I would think people celebrate it generally with good intentions, despite the negative attributes associated with it that are referenced in the article.

I'm not religious, so it's just another consumerist holiday for me. I only celebrate it because I enjoy spending time with my family and the whole seasonal atmosphere during this time. I think it's a great way to end the year. :)
 

Magic Poriferan

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For me, holidays have a social function, and I pretty much never observe the thing they supposedly celebrate.
 
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"Black Pete" has a cool ring to it. I like that the Dutch have a peculiar version of Christmas. It reminds me of the Cajun Christmas story, where Santa Claus is pulled by alligators instead of reindeer, except theirs is more interesting because they have an original character.

I didn't read the whole article, but the Dutch could just say that Pete was black because he jumps down the chimney and not because he was a slave. Doesn't that fix it?
 
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I think Christians have a right to celebrate it if they want. I would think people celebrate it generally with good intentions, despite the negative attributes associated with it that are referenced in the article.

I'm not religious, so it's just another consumerist holiday for me. I only celebrate it because I enjoy spending time with my family and the whole seasonal atmosphere during this time. I think it's a great way to end the year. :)

Christians have a right to it, but I wonder what impact it has on them as individuals and overall on society, whether it is an overall positive or negative effect.
 

Pionart

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We should have a second Christmas late in June so we have both solstices covered.
 

Thalassa

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This is why the season of Advent exists.

I disagree with the Jehovah Witness viewpoint that all holidays are evil, though that's their right to do as they wish...but i disagree because Jewish holidays, seasons, feasts and fasts exist, they're physical reminders of our connection as humans to God and the spiritual realm.

But yes I think Advent should be observed before Christmas just like Lent is observed before Easter, to avoid over-focus on consumer aspects, emotional exhaustion, spiritual emptiness and binges that result from the secular consumer pre-Christmas season. The twelve days of Christmas are actually from Christmas day until the first week of January.

I think giving and charitable acts should be encouraged instead of shopping and competitive light displays, and I have personally observed Christmas Eve for a lot of my adult life by going to candle light services. In my childhood I was in Christmas pageants and we had a family gathering on every Christmas eve, plus you know me and my sisters read from the Bible and we had a nativity, and I think that sort of thing is common among Southern conservative protestants, and I think it's fine, but as an adult I gravitated to Catholicism and chose Lutheranism, because I think priests should marry and all Christians should be welcome at the communion table, that telling people taking communion without confession is mortal sin is really cruel. ..but what attracted me about Catholics and therfore Lutherans is the observation of Advent and Lent (as well as the level of education encouraged among members of the church being much higher and the solemnity and aesthetic that actually stems from Jewish temples, and isn't as pagan as evangelicals try to say it is, Glory to God in the Highest can include creative talents, beauty and tbh, I think when churches were more glorious that it kept development in general to a certain standard, unlike the cheap ugly industrial buildings that surround us in strip malls, suburbs and yes some protestant churches ).

Sorry if that's a longer and more convuluted answer than you wanted, but yes we should celebrate Christmas just not the shopping mall version.
 

Thalassa

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Oh and BTW, it's not Christmas per se, that brings out the worst in people, it's Black Friday. I mean you might as call it Satan's Day...Black Friday...Black Mass...people killing each other over STUFF...the commercial season as we currently know it began sometime around the 1930s, though some of the more family or home centered traditions stem from the Victorians, or other European cultures.
 
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